


The Persistence Of Loss

by 28ghosts



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Canon, Religious Guilt, slightly implied past garashir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 04:30:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15135134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/28ghosts/pseuds/28ghosts
Summary: Julian Bashir adapts to life on DS9 after the war.*There are rumors specific to the Infirmary. Predictable ones, mostly. Dying words from empty rooms, or Cardassians snarling at their doctors about the latest Bajoran uprising, or crying. Bashir ignores them. If someone hears a strange noise in the middle of the station-night, it's more likely him in his office than anything else.The stories are mostly about the temple and the Promenade. "They say if you're alone in the temple when the wormhole opens, you can hear the pah'wraiths screaming," he overhears one of his patients tell a nurse. "My wife is going to test it tomorrow night. If she comes back acting strange..."





	The Persistence Of Loss

**Author's Note:**

> named for the [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJTzc3zrIrw) by nine inch nails.

Some time after all of the Infirmary's new staff has arrived is the first time that Jabara invites Bashir to services at the temple. Without thinking, he says yes.

He regrets it immediately. He's been working nearly twice his scheduled time trying to get the new nurses and doctors oriented to DS9, and the only thing he wants once his shift is over is to crawl into bed. But he goes with Jabara and her wife anyways.

Part of him hopes Kira will be there. She isn't. He only sees her these days during wardroom all-hands meetings, but she always looks for him and nods in grim, exhausted acknowledgement.

He doesn't take it personally -- she isn't ignoring him. DS9 is her station now, and it's a daunting responsibility that she takes just as seriously as Sisko did.

And where he's been working twice his time, he knows she's been working even more. He hears stories about her showing up in Ops after triple-shifts to help with dodgy security protocols. Sometimes she walks Bajoran recruits to the Infirmary for their first rounds of vaccines, though she never wanders in herself.

Bashir still has the urge, sometimes, to take things personally, but he can never convince himself to. There was something in him, once, desperate to be liked. It vanished at some point -- faded into something that cared about more important things.

He's not quite sure why he agrees to go. Sitting with other people, though, is calming. Fumbling through prayers, hearing his voice meld in with dozens of others. Bashir has no love for religion, but the community aspect alone is a comfort.

Jabara thanks him for coming, afterwards, and tells him he's always welcome. Her wife nods in solemn agreement. Bashir stumbles back to his quarters head empty, and nearly falls asleep without calling for lights.

So much to do. Telorri's replacement to onboard, and Ezri's, too. There's a hollow thought. He slips into sleep, thinking through Bajoran group-prayers rather than about other things.

He doesn't always go to services when Jabara invites him to after that, but he goes often enough to notice Jabara usually attends without her wife. He knows better than to ask about it, but when she claims to be glad for the company, Bashir realizes that perhaps she means it.

If they don't make a quick exit from services, Vedek Prasa will come to clasp him by the hands and issue his thanks to Bashir for arriving. It's not precisely unwelcome, but the way Prasa stares at him is unnerving. As if he's looking for someone else in Bashir's eyes.  


* * *

Nurse Sona (a Bajoran, a new recruit) mentions once off-hand, between surgeries, that Bashir attends services more often than their station commander does.

"I'm lucky to have fewer obligations than Commander Kira," he answers blandly. He glances at Sona, who smiles and shakes her head.

"It's true. The Commander is busy." It takes the tone of a concession.

There is disappointment, Bashir has heard, that the Commander does not practice her religion openly. Rumor one day is that Starfleet accepts only Bajorans who renounce their religion; rumor the next is that not only is this true, but Commander Kira has falsely renounced her religion to keep the station in Bajoran hands (what a good follower of the Prophets, the implication is -- willing to make such a sacrifice!)

Bashir hears a great deal of this sort of station gossip now that he has no one in particular to share his meals with. It's easy for a Starfleet officer to blend into the background of the replimat, easy to let be forgotten his unnatural keenness of hearing, his faculty for reading lips in five languages.

After everything, Bashir doesn't mind so much blending in, being a bit forgotten about. Doesn't mind disappearing a congregation. It's pleasant, in its own way.

* * *

(It isn't only Sona who obliquely feels out his stance on Commander Kira's faith, but Bashir never fails to defer politely with some vague thing that absolves Kira without being too obvious about it. He hears Garak in the back of his head every time, something the man had mentioned once over lunch: _There are some things, my dear doctor, that cannot be protested. No matter how innocent one is, merely making a claim as such will never be interpreted as anything other than guilt._ )

* * *

With time, the senior staff all-hands feel less urgent. Kira prefers even more strongly than Sisko had that in-depth meetings happen on a department-by-department basis, rather than spending too much time forcing other departments to talk through department-specific issues. But now that the dust has settled, there's less and less of that. Both the new recruits and transfers have adapted to the 26-hour station schedule, and most staff vaccinations are up-to-date. Every officer has been sternly warned not to trust Quark. There's only been a few dust-ups on the Promenade, so on and so forth.

Engineering has the hardest job of it, but the new engineers have been brought up-to-date on the Cardassian engineering standards that will inform all too much about how they work with the station. Constable Ro has had security running with near terrifying efficiency since she arrived. As for Medical, all of Bashir's staff have memorized the core data for all species representing DS9's current staff and permanent residents.

Not cheerfully, but they'd done it. Bashir had walked in on a doctor complaining about having to learn Ferengi genetic defects and fought to keep his expression stern even as he'd wanted to laugh into the replicator terminal. He'd turned with tea in hand and deadpanned, "Dr. Riordan, if that's the most you ever have to learn about Ferengi biology, you'll be much luckier than me," at which even Riordan had laughed.

He starts to linger after their meetings. They've never quite been friends, him and Kira. But during a few minutes here she teases him about his reputed sternness, and during a few minutes there he complains about Vedek Prasa, which Kira howls laughing at.

Never for long, though. They're both busy, after all.

* * *

Until one all-hands Kira asks for him to stay behind, and he does.

Once they're alone, Kira says, "Your staff is afraid of you, you know."

He feels his expression screw into concern more than he feels concern. "Is that so."

Kira sighs, letting herself lean back in the commander's chair. "It's alright," she says, not that the reassurance is needed. Bashir appreciates it anyways. "Half the new blood I talk to is convinced there's ghosts on the station. Have you heard that yet?"

"I have."

Kira sighs into her hands. Her d'ja pagh glints in the low boardroom light. "Vedek Prasa wants me to condemn it."

"Seems out of bounds of the duty of a Starfleet officer."

"Yeah, that's what I told him, too."

Bashir kicks back in his chair and examines her for a moment. Tired, unsurprisingly.

The proportion of Bajorans on-station attending Temple services has, according to none other than Vedek Prasa himself, declined in recent years. Absent an Emissary, it's not surprising, at least to Bashir.

Bashir has never been a man of faith. Despite that, he can imagine the strangeness of worshipping gods one once only believed in, gods you'd since, well, met.

He knows better than to pry. He changes the subject to something more innocuous. Perhaps Kira looks relieved.

* * *

Time passes. He and Kira settle into a routine of meeting at Quark's for drinks once or twice a week, adjusting for station and medical emergencies as necessary. She's strict about holding them both to it, as if merely existing in public will make them seem more approachable. They mostly talk about station business. There's not much else to talk about.

"According to Ro, false alerts have finally started to drop," Kira says. She favors Bajoran drinks for the most part, but she must be feeling celebratory, as she's opted for something bright which she stirs idly with a long straw. "I don't know that the rumors themselves are stopping, though."

Bashir swirls his glass, considering. It's strange, Starfleet officers being so susceptible to what's no more elevated than ghost stories. Then again, the Prophets are real -- even if they are just another sort of alien. "My nurses overrode the daylight controls in the Infirmary."

"Scared of the dark?"

"I suppose." Light-dark cycles can be strange for people new to living long-term in space, especially when changing shift assignment for the first time. Bashir is more comfortable with the constancy of light and brightness than he would be a real daylight-cycle. DS9 can be dim and shadowy, but only in the machinery of it is light never an option. "Only Syva is willing to go in there alone. But I think he enjoys spooking the rest of the staff."

"Oh, good. He's going to make the ghost stories worse."

"Just our luck," Bashir agrees. He finds it funny, having a Vulcan on staff who straight-facedly lets the others fret about hauntings and Prophets. But Kira might not see the humor in it.

He and Kira spend an idle hour people-watching and swapping second-hand accounts of Prophets showing up in abandoned corridors, children's voices crying out for help from the vents. At least one Bajoran resident swears up and down that the Emissary himself will show up in a mirror if you ask for him three times, alone, but if you're not lucky it will be a pah'wraith instead. (Vedek Prasa is the only one on the station less amused by it all than Kira.)

* * *

Bashir does stay up-to-date on station gossip and ghost stories mostly via eavesdropping, now a practiced habit more than something he does during meals to distract himself. The new staff is still a bit stiff with him. They treat him as part annoying boss, part living legend of the Dominion War.

They'll get past the strangeness in time, he's sure. His first year at CMO had been a bit similar, though his staff had mostly not known what to make of him. He misses the easy camaraderie they'd managed to strike after a few years. It'd been one of the things he could count on to cheer him up during the worst of the Dominion War.

He spends more time in the Infirmary than he does in his own quarters. Even if he's off-duty, he's just as likely working on research, and it's easier to do so in his office, so why leave?

There are rumors specific to the Infirmary. Predictable ones, mostly. Dying words from empty rooms, or Cardassians snarling at their doctors about the latest Bajoran uprising, or crying. Bashir ignores them. If someone hears a strange noise in the middle of the station-night, it's more likely him in his office than anything else.

The stories are mostly about the temple and the Promenade. "They say if you're alone in the temple when the wormhole opens, you can hear the pah'wraiths screaming," he overhears one of his patients tell a nurse. "My wife is going to test it tomorrow night. If she comes back acting strange..."

Towards the end of a shift, two ensigns from engineering come in with a third between them, swaying on his feet. Some nasty plasma burns and shock, no doubt. Jabara takes to scolding them for not transporting over while Bashir takes charge of settling the injured officer down on the bed, taking readings, administering something for the pain. It's just complex enough of a task for him to forget this is -- well, he always thinks of it as Jadzia's biobed.

Jabara brings the ensigns back about an hour later, once Bashir is done with the poor man. His name is Alers, and he's been on the station for just three weeks. Second-degree burns with variable depth, which are always tricky to get the dermal regenerator working right with. But it's always a relief to be able to offer good news, so as Alers flexes his fingers, feeling out his new skin, Bashir turns to the engineer's friends. "None the worse for wear," he says with a smile. "Despite the walk."

"We had a long talk about appropriate emergency patient transfer protocols, don't worry," adds Jabara.

It's Alers to speak next, though, slinging his legs off he biobed. He still looks a little woozy, but shock can be like that. "Sorry, Dr. Bashir. They wanted to use the transporter; I'm the one who insisted..." He looks away, awkward. "Last time I used the transporter..."

"He thought he heard something," one of the attending ensigns interrupts.

"A voice," confirms the second ensign.

Alers looks sheepish and nods as Bashir helps him to his feet. The new skin looks indistinguishable from old.

"Let me guess," says Jabara. "Like a ghost?" She's perfected the tone of a disappointed but unsurprised babysitter, and the officers look suitably chastened.

"If it happens again, file a report," Bashir tells Alers gently. Bedside manner has always come easily to him, though it's odd having his patients like him better than his staff does. "There can be audio distortions during transport because of radiation interference, but it shouldn't be happening on the station. It isn't impossible, though, and you very well may have heard something -- not, though, something supernatural in origin. And I don't want someone else beaming you here unconscious because you tried to talk in with a broken leg or something, understood?"

"Yes, sir," says Alers.

He lets his brow furrow, looking to Alers's two friends. "That goes for you two as well."

"Yes, sir," they answer.

"Ensign, I'd like you to come back in tomorrow for a quick check-up just to make sure that nerve damage has been repaired. That, though, you can walk here for."

Alers grins at that, even as he shakes his head. "Gotcha, Dr. Bashir. Thank you."

"My pleasure."

"Feel kinda dumb for getting so worked up about using the transporter now."

"It's alright, though don't make a habit of it." Bashir glances at Alers's friends. "A lot of people new to the station find it a bit overwhelming at first, sometimes a bit...unsettling."

The two ensigns glance at each other, and one of them seems to make an impulse decision. "You don't think there's -- ghosts on the station, do you?"

"Prophets, Lavanchy, of course the CMO isn't going to think the station's haunted," Alers says. He sounds a bit embarrassed.

"It's true; I don't know of any compelling scientific evidence suggesting that ghosts exist." As much as he'd more or less like to end the discussion there, he sighs, thinking of Kira encouraging him to be more approachable. And so he lets his tone imply something.

Bashir sets the biobed that Jadzia died on to autosterilize, and he turns to see the two ensigns and the engineer watching him, nervous and expectant. “But there don’t have to be ghosts for a place to be haunted,” he says. He attempts a smile. “Even I think I hear things now and then.”

The officers look suitably spooked. At one of the terminals, Jabara doesn’t hide her amusement.

He turns back to the biobed, glistening and clean. It’s a lie, of course. He wishes it was true. But he’s stood in the temple alone late at night, the light of the wormhole dancing over everything in sight, and prayed to hear Jadzia’s voice. He’s stood in Kira’s office and closed his eyes and almost convinced himself Sisko was talking just out of earshot. When the Promenade is most empty, he’s let his vision blur and told himself the shifting he sees must be Odo, waiting to ambush Quark for something.

Sometimes when he goes to the temple by himself, Kira is already there. And they sit together in silence. There's nothing to say, and there's nothing to hear, either.

* * *

Some nights Bashir returns to his quarters. Glances at Kukalaka gathering dust on his desk. Strips off his boots, his overshirt, and replicates something to drink.

Sits at the foot of his bed. Says, "Computer, list available unheard files."

At which point the ship's computer indexes which ship reports from between the suitable dates in 2369 and 2375 that he hasn't listened to yet. They're mostly, though not entirely, public logs. (Constable Ro is less careful about computer security than Odo ever was, and Bashir picked a few things other than tact from Garak.)

He paces himself. Never listens to more than one log a night.

On the worst nights, Bashir does hear the dead. Not, though, because they persist on the station. No: Bashir hears the dead because he wants to.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading <3


End file.
